Kakovatos and Triphylia in the 2nd millennium BCE

Since the discovery of three richly furnished tholos tombs in 1907, Kakovatos has been recognized as an important site of the Early Mycenaean period (15th cent.) BCE in the region of the western Peloponnese. Recent excavations revealed the remains of a contemporary habitation site of distinguished character, which was destroyed by fire at some point around the middle of the 15th century BCE. The present project promises the comprehensive and integral study of the Bronze Age settlement site in its regional context. The simultaneous reassessment of the old finds from the tholos tombs in an up-to-date publication and their interpretation within the framework of Early Mycenaean burials on the Greek mainland offers the rare opportunity to study contemporary data from an Early Mycenaean settlement and corresponding burials in relation to each other. The evaluation of the results of the excavation at Kakovatos will be supplemented by the study of material from neighbouring sites (Epitalion-Ayioryitika, Kleidi-Samikon, Ayios Dimitrios). This will allow placing the Bronze Age settlement site of Kakovatos in the regional context of northern Triphylia and may help to investigate on a regional level the factors that led to the development and existence of Kakovatos as the prominent place of the surrounding landscape and the seat of the regional elite. Triphylia therefore makes a suitable region for studying processes of the formation of hierarchical structures at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age in the southwest Peloponnese. The available material from four key sites in the region offers the rare opportunity for the contextual approach to the production and exchange of pottery within a Middle and Late Bronze Age micro- region in a diachronic perspective. Especially the systematic study of pottery from the different sites and a program of chemical and petrographic analyses will support our understanding of the regional patterns of pottery production, circulation and consumption. This will help to illustrate site interaction and settlement hierarchies and superregional patterns of contact. Despite the end of Kakovatos in the 15th cent. BCE, other sites in Triphylia apparently continued until the end of the palatial period towards 1200 BCE. The evaluation of the pottery from Kleidi-Samikon, Epitalion-Ayioryitika and Ay. Dimitrios offers potential information about regional developments in the palatial periods and after (14th - 12th cent. BCE). The Kakovatos project is committed to an interdisciplinary approach for reconstructing the past in a Greek micro-region of the 2nd millennium BCE. In addition to archaeological methods of evaluating excavated materials its builds on the petrographic and chemical analysis of pottery and its technological landscape, the study of the palaeogeographic environment and the comparative and contextual study of archaeozoological as well as palaeobotanical remains.

The rise of a stratified society in the Early Mycenaean period (c. 16th-15th cent. BC) within its regional context lies at the core of this interdisciplinary project. Kakovatos is a significant site on the west coast of the Peloponnese and became widely known through the excavations of three large tombs in 1907-1908 that still yielded a rich array of funeral gifts. The project is dedicated to the publication of the old finds from these tombs and of the recent excavations on the plateau that were carried out 2010-2011. The integration of finds from neighbouring sites and a systematic program of petrographic and chemical analysis of pottery allows developing a regional perspective on pottery production and consumption as well as inter-site communication on a regional and supra-regional level. The finds from the large built tombs include jewellery from the Near East, but also amber from the Baltic Sea. Foreign materials were employed to elevate the status of selected people. Elaborately decorated jars are just another feature of these early Mycenaean elite tombs and originate from a few locations of the mainland. Pottery and prestige objects suggest that the inhabitants of Kakovatos were integrated into an Aegean network spanning at least the Peloponnese and the southern Aegean. Contemporaneously with these tombs, an architectural complex with substantial storage capacities was erected. Just as the tombs stood out by their size, expenditure in terms of construction and wealth of grave offerings among the tombs of the region, the building complex on the acropolis hill was set apart spatially, clearly visible above the Triphylian plain. While Kakovatos apparently emerged as the most important site of the region in the Early Mycenaean period, the 15th century BC formed a turning point, when the site was destroyed and not rebuilt again. The analysis of the Late Bronze Age pottery of from three different additional sites contributes to the perception of Triphylia as a well-connected landscape. The comparison of the pottery ensembles suggests intense supra-regional contacts. However, it illustrates that the other settlements operated on a medium level of the hierarchy, but unlike Kakovatos, survived the transformative period from the Early Mycenaean to the palatial era. This may reflect changes in the political geography and suggest the integration of the micro-region into the territory of a neighbouring polity. Geoarchaeological investigations promise a better understanding of the palaeo-environment searching for the Bronze Age coastline and the location of a potential harbour. As part of this larger project, in 2016 a conference in Athens gathered well-known scholars, who presented new results of their archaeological work in the Peloponnese and discussed perspectives for approaching the social practices that created and shaped the spaces and places of early Mycenaean Greece.